The Waiting Game

The last couple of weeks of pregnancy are easily the worst. I've reached a point where the baby could come any day now. But it could also still take several weeks for him to arrive. And there's nothing to be done about it. All of the signs of early labor double as symptoms of late pregnancy. This hasn't stopped me from obsessively googling everything from back aches to spotting to weird pressures and pains. But the hard truth is that the baby will come when he comes and there's not a thing I can do to change or predict when that will be.

Well, that's not entirely true. Because he's so big, my doctor offered me the option of inducing a week early. When she presented this option, she said I'd need to make a decision that day if I wanted to get an appointment before my due date. At first I was all for this. I've been wanting the kid to come early, if only because I'm so done being pregnant. But I also knew it was worth doing some research and figuring out what all the risks were.

After a lot of back and forth and going down a few rabbit holes on the internet, we decided it wasn't worth it to induce early. It turns out that the risk of a c-section because the baby is too big isn't all that different from the risk of a c-section after an induction. Plus the induction comes with a whole host of other risks, especially if your body isn't quite ready to give birth. Since there was no real justifiable reason to induce early, we decided not to. So now it's just good old-fashioned hoping that the stars align and the kid comes before his due date.

Though we did decide that it's worth inducing if he's still hanging out past his due date. Although that decision was also helped along by the fact that I appear to be closer to labor and therefore an induction would be less risky.

So that's where we stand now. As of my doctor's appointment this morning (yesterday, by the time this posts), I'm 3 cm dilated. Which means basically nothing. The kid could come today or next week or still be hanging out when we reach my induction appointment. I'm still hoping he comes a bit early, though now that's mostly because I don't want to trek to the hospital for a 6 am appointment.

In the meantime, we're about as ready as we can be. The nursery is all put together, and I think we have everything we need. I'm sure we'll discover more we need as we go, but the store isn't that far away. I haven't packed my hospital bag, mostly because the things I want to pack (pillows, shampoo, etc) are things I still use every day. But I should have time to do that once I know labor is starting. Which, by the way, is also weird. In the movies they always show the woman going into labor and rushing out of the house. In reality, it's only 8% of pregnancies where the water breaks before you go to the hospital. For everyone else, you time contractions for 60-90 minutes before calling your doctor who will decide whether you should come in or wait longer.

So it's all about waiting now. Waiting for labor to start. Waiting for it to shift to active labor. Waiting to go to the hospital. And then probably more waiting. But, as the kind nurse told me this morning, I can't be pregnant forever. Soon enough he'll be here, and everything will change. More importantly, I'll be able to have a tuna melt and a beer.

Please Come Early

At 36 weeks, I had a final ultrasound to check and make sure everything was good with the baby. Actually, it seems my doctor was worried about how the umbilical cord had attached to the placenta. I never really got a complete answer about why they were worried about this in my case (I definitely don't have a history of it, as one doctor claimed, seeing as this if my first pregnancy). But I'm mostly willing to trust the doctors, and I was eager to get some measurements of the baby anyway.

It seems that my umbilical cord is attached to the side of the placenta rather than in the center. Which can lead to two things: a malnourished baby and excessive bleeding during labor. Well, the baby certainly isn't malnourished. Which either means that the umbilical cord implanted properly or that it isn't an issue. As I'm writing this I'm realizing how little I actually know. I'm not sure how I feel about that. As I said, I basically trust my doctors. They've done this a lot more than I have.

What I did learn at that ultrasound is that my baby is enormous. They said he already weighed about 7 lbs, 11 oz, putting him in the 87th percentile. The tech said I looked closer to 38 weeks than 36, and my mom said that's nearly what I weighed when I was born.

So now I'm hoping the the kid decides to come early. Even though Kevin was almost 2 weeks late and weighed well over 10 pounds when he was born, I have my fingers crossed that our son will come a little earlier and be a little smaller. Which he probably won't. I can still dream though.

The problem is that I'm now driving myself a little bit crazy looking for signs that I'm going into labor. According to the internet, literally everything could be a sign of early labor. Then again it could just be a symptom of late pregnancy. And it's basically impossible to tell until you actually go in to labor. Not that that's stopped me (or thousands of other women) from tracking these signs and convincing ourselves that the baby's coming only to be disappointed.

Two days after the ultrasound, I experienced some spotting over night. Then I had intermittent back pain in the morning. Convinced that things were starting, I call my doctor and moved my scheduled appointment up a day. Of course nothing was actually happening, but I did get some peace of mind about it at least. I also discovered that the cervix check is more painful than I would have thought possible. So now I'm both eagerly awaiting and straight up terrified of going into labor. But billions of women have done this and most of them came through it just fine.

I'm still hoping the kid decides to show up any day now. I still have three weeks until my due date, and two weeks until I have enough PTO to go on maternity leave. But I'm so sick of being pregnant and so anxious about birthing this monster of a child that I can't help but hope he comes early. Especially since he would be considered full-term at this point. In the meantime I need to try to stay away from the internet.